How to Get Your Print Books into Airport Bookstores

Airport

… and into the hands of traveler’s impulse-buying?  What better way to while away waiting hours than by reading good books?  Airport bookstores get lots of traffic and exposure, and hopefully sales for your book.  Sales are what concerns these stores and the reason why they are careful about what they shelve.
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Books at travel hubs, such as airports and train stations, generally have to have:

  • a fabulous and enticing book cover layout
  • a kind of book that appeals to travelers
  • a compelling price to prompt impulse purchases
  • an ISBN, EAN barcode and its price printed on the rear cover

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Which Books Sell Best to Travelers?
Beside novels – mystery or romance – and non-fiction themes, such as computers, cars, food, health, finance, fitness, and even children’s books (as a gift or for their little family members during the flight) is what interests many travelers.  During the holiday season and the long summertime is when airport book purchases thrive.
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First Things First
Even if your first, self-published work is amazing and sports an enticing cover: you might have to offer more titles, great sales numbers and lots of positive reviews from professional media outlets – preferably a “#1 Bestseller” sticker.
However, even if you possess all these, there is no guarantee that the airport bookstores will carry your titles.  After all, books from Agatha Christie, Danielle Steel, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, Nora Roberts, Jane Austen, Jackie Collins, James Patterson, Victor Hugo, Jules Verne, J. K. Rowling, Jack Higgins, Stephen King, and Leon Uris are your competition there.
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Distributors and Professional Purchasers
Find out if the distributor of your books delivers to airport bookstores, and contact them to learn what you can do to with this endeavor.  It might be a good idea to get a second or third distributor for your books who have contracts with WH Smith in the UK – eBookPartnership for example and even Baker & Taylor, IngramSpark or ReaderLink – which are distributing to some airport stores.
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Publishers and Indies can contact purchasers of airport bookstores directly, such as:

  • W.H. Smith and WHSmith Booksellers  operates or owns 255 airport shops and 421 hotel stores in the UK and Europe
  • HMSHost Corporation, which operates fourteen “Simply Books” bookstores in airports right now, mainly in Southern states.
  • Download a Consignment Program information from BooksInc. airport locations in California
  • ReaderLink is the largest full-service distributor of hardcover, trade and paperback books to 24,000 non-trade channel booksellers in North America
  • Paradies-Lagardere, with headquarters in Atlanta and Toronto, cater to airport travelers in all of North America, and even the Caribean.

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Why Not Contact Them Directly?
Often, visiting the largest book fairs in Europe and North America helps you to be able to contact the buyers for book chains who also operate at airports and train stations. Or, if you are time-starved, just order John Kremer’s Top 700 Independent Bookstores Data Files.  It includes names of the book buyers and event coordinators, address, phone, fax, email, website, and other information about each bookstore.
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Once you find the decision-maker, be aware that their primary concerns are margin and sale-ability.  If you can offer both, you might have an edge over publishers with better-known titles, but no flexibility on cover price.  Be aware that if your book is published by a POD publisher, you might have a tougher time selling them on stocking your book.  Some major booksellers treat POD/Vanity companies as worse than self-published.  Some individual stores are able to make all decisions regarding books taken in their stores on consignment.
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Pricing for Airport Book Stores
PublisherHaven explains: “Since airport bookstores don’t have the luxury of having the customers browse for long periods of time, they try to make as much profit as possible and jack up the prices on things like food and drinks – but for familiar pre-priced products, like books and magazines, it’s harder to impose price increases. That’s why they go after the publisher, trying to get a better discount by buying in volume for all of their locations.
As a self-published author who can control your profit margins yourself without worrying about the markup taken by distributors, you are in a position to offer attractive discounts to the stores – which will enhance your chances of getting them to take on your book.”
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Conclusion:
Several factors including price, cover appeal, subject, author recognition, timeliness of the topic, current promotion of the book, and most importantly, whether or not the buyer believes it will sell, determine if your book will make it into the stores.  The same factors that publishing houses examine before taking on a book from an author.  And yet, even if you have to give large discounts to these stores, the rewards of immediate national distribution can be significant.

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